Abstract

The number of organisations with ISO 9000 certification over the world has increased
dramatically in the last decade in developed and developing nations. The new standard
ISO 9001:2000 is a way for an organisation to manage internal and external customer
satisfaction and demonstrate continuous improvement.
In Libya four Manufacturing Public Sector Organisations (LMPSOs) have got ISO 9000
certification, for exporting their products to reduce Libya's reliance on oil revenue. The
low number of certified LMPSOs suggests that there are barriers affecting these
organisations achieving ISO 9000 certification, hi similar countries, for example, UAE
they have more than nine hundred organisations registered with the certification.
Therefore the aim of this research was "to identify and analyse the barriers that affect
the implementation of a quality management system (QMS-ISO 9000 in Libyan
Manufacturing Public Sector Organisations (LMPSOs)".
From the literature review many barriers faced by many organisations, from different
countries around the world, in their implementation process, were identified. Also, a
conceptual framework was developed. There is a lack of empirical research on barriers
affecting the new standard implementation, and the number of studies in Arabic
countries is very limited with respect to the available literature in Western countries. To
get an in-depth understanding of the barriers affecting LMPSOs, two case studies were
carried out. A comprehensive list and in-depth understanding of barriers was identified
by this research. Some of them (19) were identified as being unique to the Libyan
culture in that they have not been reported before in the literature. Some of them are
similar to barriers reported in Arabic (20), Islamic (19), Western (20) and other
countries (32) such as Asian and South American countries. Therefore, this research
makes a contribution to this area by adding to the limited literature. Another
contribution of this research is that it has specifically filled the gap in knowledge in
Libyan studies and in Arabic studies in general. Some recommendations for further
research have been derived from this research.